


The Side Job

by magnetgirl



Category: Leverage
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Multi, Parker Being Parker (Leverage), Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28503981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/magnetgirl
Summary: Parker blurs the line between reality and fantasy.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37
Collections: 2020 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange





	The Side Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [huntformagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/huntformagic/gifts).



> Hello! I wrote a little twist on your request for a fantasy au with some plot elements borrowed from the film _Ondine_. I hope you like it and I wish you a very happy new year.

Typically a child learns the elements of a fairy tale in grade school. Fairy tales include magic, have clearly defined heroes and villains, are focused on a solving a problem, and teach a lesson. But Parker’s childhood was not typical. She didn’t attend school very often so no one told her how to interpret stories. 

The job brought them to Scotland, to get drugrunners out of a small town fishery. Hardison hated the cold, the wet, and the extremely spotty signal strength. Eliot loved the fresh air, the hard work, and the chance to wear [a very distinctive sweater](https://www.flamboroughmanor.co.uk/ganseys.htm). Parker was bored. All the buildings were two stories at most and there was a remarkable lack of shiny. Her part done for the moment, and left to her own devices while the boys worked, she made friends with the only interesting person in miles: the widowed client's seven year old daughter.

"Her mother's gone, Parker. That's why we're here." She'd been dragged into the drug ring, manipulated, blackmailed, cut loose and killed in police custody before she could make a deal. She'd been targeted because her husband had a fishing boat and her daughter had an expensive medical condition.

"I know but Marnie didn't get a chance to say goodbye."

Eliot sighed. He was already tired of whatever his partner was on about. "What do you want to do about it?"

"Go to the island."

"What island?" asked Hardison.

"The seal island."

Eliot had a headache. "There are over nine hundred islands off the coast of Scotland."

"How many of them have seals?"

"All of them!"

Parker glanced to Hardison, typing into his laptop. He nodded agreement with Eliot's conclusion.

Parker frowned. "How many of them have magic seals?"

Eliot pressed his lips into a flat line. "There's no such thing as a magic seal, Parker."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because there’s no such thing as magic." Not the kind she meant anyway.

Parker looked over to Hardison again. He sighed and told them what he'd found in a quick web search. "Selkie legends date back hundreds of years. The most common stories tell of seals who shed their skin when they come on land and become beautiful women."

"Dammit Hardison!"

Hardison ignored the bellow and continued. "The seal women are found by fishermen and depending on the story they either seduce them or fall in love. But they are always drawn back to the sea. To keep their wives, the fishermen hide the selkie skins. If the coat is found, the woman transforms back and disappears."

Parker turned to Eliot with a satisfied grin, content that this explained everything.

"It's a story, Parker, a fairy tale. It's not _real_."

Parker narrowed her eyes and spun around with such force her pony tail slapped him in the face. She marched over to the little girl playing quietly by the window. As Parker kneeled down to talk to Marnie her shoulders relaxed and the anger drifted away. Eliot and Hardison watched from across the room.

"It's real to her," Hardison said. Eliot glared as he closed his laptop and started to pack up. He didn't know if Hardison meant Parker or the girl. In the end it didn't matter. He leaned down to help Hardison gather his things and they walked over to the window.

"Let's go steal a fairy tale," Eliot muttered under his breath.

* * *

The island was smaller than a city park and free of structures. Free of everything except sand, clamshells— mussels, corrected Eliot in a growl —and seals. The animals scattered at the sound of the boat, but they don't move very easily on land and left rough tracks in the sand. The little girl, Marnie, ran after gleefully. Eliot waved to the others to let her go, couldn't get lost or hurt on such a small island.

_Once upon a time, a fisherman found a woman in his net. She was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. The woman spoke a language he'd never heard and remembered nothing of her life before the ocean. The fisherman called her Marina. He taught her his language and his trade and invited her to stay with him. Marina and the fisherman fell in love and were married. They were happy for a year, and had a daughter they named Marnie._

_But every time Marina looked at the water she felt a longing in the pit of her stomach, and their beautiful child had a weak heart because her mother was missing her sealskin, her self. A conclave of wizards, who make potions from the skins of magic seals, found Marina in the village. They told her they could help Marnie grow strong in exchange for her seal coat. Marina did not want to leave her family, but she needed the magic to save her daughter. She helped the wizards smuggle their wares in her husband's nets. But the wizards were dark practitioners and they betrayed Marina, stealing her skin along with the rest. The only way to escape was to take it back._

_So the fisherman contacted a group of tricksters who help people in need. Three came to the small village: a powerful fighter who took over the fisherman's boat in order to capture the wizards. A good wizard who tracked the selkie potions through the dark web in order to destroy them and free the trapped fae. And an acrobat who found Marina's stolen coat._

_But when Marina was reunited with her sealskin she remembered her history and knew she belonged in the waves with her people. She loved the fisherman and little Marnie very much, but they would all be in danger if she stayed. So she kissed her husband one last time and dove into the ocean, never to be seen again._

Parker, Hardison, and Eliot watched Marnie approach a seal that remained on the beach. It was long and dark, with a spotted tail and eyes that darted with a strange intensity. It undulated in the sand, staying just outside reach of the child, but didn't flee or turn away. Marnie touched her hand to the wet sand and drew the shape of a heart. The seal glanced between the image and the girl, appearing to ask a question.

"I got a new heart, Mommy," Marnie whispered to the seal. "I'm gonna grow up strong."

The seal barked and slid away to disappear into the sea. Marnie ran after. Parker followed, then Hardison, and finally Eliot, who grumbled about seals and stories and children and partners, but understood the value of all of the above, and also love. The child stopped at the edge of the water, her eyes on the sea foam that appeared where the seal slipped away. She raised a hand to wave and called out "I love you, too, Mommy! I love you forever!"

Parker clasped Marnie's other hand and waved after the seal, too. Hardison reached out to stroke Parker's back. Eliot watched from three steps away, close enough to grab any of them out of danger if any sea monsters, or leftover drug smugglers, appeared. There was mist in his eyes, or at least that's the story he told Sophie when she debriefed him on the job. Mist in his eyes and running down his cheek.

* * *

Three months after the Highlands Job Eliot found Parker in his room, half inside the closet with his possessions strewn in a circle around her. He raised an eyebrow at the part guilty, part defiant, and part anxious look on her face. It was the last he was most worried about. He hadn't seen it in a long while.

"What's going on, Parker?"

"I can't find your coat."

"What coat?"

Parker started shuffling through his things again. "I thought it would be easier to find. I thought I had enough time and you wouldn't ever know I was here. We need you. I need you. I don't want you to leave."

Eliot grabbed her hands and pulled her up and away from the clutter. His touch was forceful but gentle, and familiar, safe. "What are talking about? I ain't leaving." Sometimes, more often than he wanted to admit, or acknowledge, he thought he didn't belong. That Parker and Hardison would be happier, more free, without the burden of Eliot. But he promised Nate he'd look out for them. And sometimes, more often than he wanted to admit, or acknowledge, that promise wasn't the whole story. It was only the beginning.

"But I can't find your coat."

Eliot was used to Parker's weird fixations. She wouldn't be Parker without them. He glanced around the organized disarray she'd made of his belongings and found the fisherman's jumper he'd worn in Scotland. Hardison and Sophie had rolled their eyes at him keeping it, but Eliot respected craftsmanship, and that instinct paid off here. He picked up the gansey and held it out to Parker. Her eyes flickered up to his.

"It keeps the water off, remember?" Eliot said and Parker's face lit up with a grin. She grabbed the sweater from his hands and hugged it to her chest. Eliot smiled. "Keep it safe, okay?"

Parker nodded with delighted aggression and bounded across the hall to her room. The trio spent most nights all together, usually in Hardison's bed because it felt the most right, but they each had a room of their own because boundaries are important in relationships. Or at least that's what Sophie said.

Hardison joined Eliot in the doorway, dropped a hand to stroke his back with affection as they watched Parker place the "coat" carefully in one of her many safes, lock it up, and then drop the key into another. Eliot glanced over to find a teasing expression and scowled, but his eyes laughed along with his partner.

"It's real to her," Eliot said, but no explanation was needed. Satisfied after five safes, Parker stood and joined her boys. Hardison slipped his arms around both and pressed his lips to the top of Parker's head as she drew Eliot close. Smiling, they each took turns removing their clothes, their coats, and moved as one to the bed. 

And they lived happily ever after.


End file.
